Gracedale
50 Elizabeth Street MALVERN, STONNINGTON CITY
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Statement of Significance
What is significant?
'Gracedale', at 50 Elizabeth Street, Malvern, is significant. It was constructed in 1896 and comprises a single-storey residence built to a design of distinctive detailing representing the stylistic excesses and flamboyance of the late Boom period, despite being constructed several years after the economic crash.
The house features rendered masonry walls, an Italianate asymmetrical plan form with projecting rectangular bays, distinctive cast cement balustraded parapets and a return verandah. The front facade of the house is substantially intact externally, apart from the reinstatement of verandah iron in 1992. It is significant to the extent of the nineteenth-century form and fabric.
The modern rear addition and front brick fence are not significant.
How is it significant?
'Gracedale', at 50 Elizabeth Street, Malvern, is of local architectural and aesthetic significance to the City of Stonnington.
Why is it significant?
Architecturally, 'Gracedale' is a substantially intact representative example of the Boom-style houses constructed in Melbourne's suburbs in the late 1880s and 1890s. The house adopts typical Italianate features, such as the asymmetrical plan form, M-profile hipped roof (concealed), double-hung sash windows, and ornate entrance doors. It is one of a small number of nineteenth-century Boom-style houses in this part of Malvern. They were built as part of the development of Malvern from the 1880s as a fashionable and affluent middle-class suburb. (Criterion D)
Aesthetically, the house is distinguished by its boldly modelled balustraded parapet, with decorative cornice below, and the tall rendered chimneys with large cornice mouldings, corbelling and wythes. The highly decorative cornice of the houses has deep mouldings with modillions and a continuous frieze of cast festoons. The return verandah retains its ogee-profile roof. (Criterion E)
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Gracedale - Physical Description 1
Physical description
The residence known as 'Gracedale' at 50 Elizabeth Street is a single storey rendered villa on the east side of Elizabeth Street mid-block between Beaven Avenue and Mary Street in Malvern. It is set back behind mid-sized gardens with a vehicle turning-bay and high masonry and hedged front fences that conceal views to the building from the street.
Constructed in 1896, 'Gracedale', has an asymmetrical plan which features a rectangular projecting bay to one side of an ogee-profile cast-iron verandah that returns along the north side. The building facade steps back twice from the projecting front bay with the front door accessed beneath the return verandah at the rear northern bay.
The building is distinguished by its boldly modelled parapet, with decorative cornices below, which conceal the M-profile hipped roof. The tall chimneys are rendered with large cornice mouldings, corbelling and wythes, and are decorated with a recurring cast shell motif. The balustraded parapet has classically turned balusters set between piers. The highly decorative cornice has deep mouldings with modillions and a continuous frieze of cast festoons. The cement render finish has been painted and is relatively plain below the cornice with simple square-headed openings to the double-hung sash windows, which are paired to the projecting bays and beneath the verandahs. The front door appears to retain the decorative glazing to the sidelights and highlights.
The ogee-profile verandah has a corrugated iron cast-iron frieze, brackets and ornamental fluted posts with Corinthian capitals, all reinstated in 1992 (it is not known what the original cast-iron patterns were, but the present ones are appropriate to the period).
The house has been subject to a large extension, which is contained to the rear. The high hedged fence conceals much of the distinctive architectural features of the house from the street.
Gracedale - Local Historical Themes
Thematic context
This place illustrates the following themes, as identified in the Stonnington Thematic Environmental History (Context Pty Ltd, rev. 2009):
3.3.3 Speculators and land boomers
8.2.1 'Country in the city' - Suburban development in Malvern before WWI
Heritage Study and Grading
Stonnington - City of Stonnington Victorian Houses Study
Author: City of Stonnington
Year: 2016
Grading: A2Heritage Inventory Description
Gracedale - Heritage Inventory Description
Physical description
The residence known as 'Gracedale' at 50 Elizabeth Street is a single storey rendered villa on the east side of Elizabeth Street mid-block between Beaven Avenue and Mary Street in Malvern. It is set back behind mid-sized gardens with a vehicle turning-bay and high masonry and hedged front fences that conceal views to the building from the street.
Constructed in 1896, 'Gracedale', has an asymmetrical plan which features a rectangular projecting bay to one side of an ogee-profile cast-iron verandah that returns along the north side. The building facade steps back twice from the projecting front bay with the front door accessed beneath the return verandah at the rear northern bay.
The building is distinguished by its boldly modelled parapet, with decorative cornices below, which conceal the M-profile hipped roof. The tall chimneys are rendered with large cornice mouldings, corbelling and wythes, and are decorated with a recurring cast shell motif. The balustraded parapet has classically turned balusters set between piers. The highly decorative cornice has deep mouldings with modillions and a continuous frieze of cast festoons. The cement render finish has been painted and is relatively plain below the cornice with simple square-headed openings to the double-hung sash windows, which are paired to the projecting bays and beneath the verandahs. The front door appears to retain the decorative glazing to the sidelights and highlights.
The ogee-profile verandah has a corrugated iron cast-iron frieze, brackets and ornamental fluted posts with Corinthian capitals, all reinstated in 1992 (it is not known what the original cast-iron patterns were, but the present ones are appropriate to the period).
The house has been subject to a large extension, which is contained to the rear. The high hedged fence conceals much of the distinctive architectural features of the house from the street.
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KAWARAUVictorian Heritage Register H0489
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STONINGTONVictorian Heritage Register H1608
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KATANGAVictorian Heritage Register H0935
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